


What Good Is A Camera, When You're Stuck in a Dungeon?

by medical_mechanica



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Character Study, Chocobros - Freeform, Dungeon Crawling, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:52:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/medical_mechanica/pseuds/medical_mechanica
Summary: In which Prompto is stuck in Steyliff Groves' secret dungeon recalling his career as photographer.-He couldn’t remember whose idea this was, although in that moment it would do him little good. He raggedly dodged the incoming blast that would have otherwise left him stone, as his comrades did the same.“Prompto!”He could hear Noctis bark from across the room, before warping away as one of the two Psychomancers they were facing reached toward him with their bony hands. The blond cursed faintly under his breath, bouncing his way back closer to the action and pretending that he wasn’t trying to adjust his camera settings when he was supposed to be loading a gun. Their last battle against several flan type creatures left him and his gear more than a little sticky, and he had been trying to clean out the buttons since. Quickly, if not reluctantly, Prompto set his camera down and summoned his gun. In one movement, he cocked it with the correct round.“Let me brighten your day!” he shouted his usual warning call for a flare, firing in a high arc that illuminated the room. The deamons recoiled, if only momentarily.“Prompto, WAKE UP,”This was tiring and Prompto was beginning to hate it.





	What Good Is A Camera, When You're Stuck in a Dungeon?

**Author's Note:**

> Currently, this is more of a character study that was written some time ago while I was trying to get the bros down. I'd love to add a few chapters when shit gets real because those secret dungeons are a nightmare, and since none of it makes any sort of real sense in the context of the plot, I was hoping to let it get a little surreal and shippy.

Prompto loved weddings. Not that he would admit it to anyone, let alone his best friend. And, it wasn’t as if he was the one photographing them either. He had been assisting a wedding photographer all over Insomnia for two and a half years before Noctis’ engagement to Luna had been announced. Of course, he had been shooting on his own too, but his work was pretty far off from being commercial material. So when the news broke, he could remember holding his breath in wait to see if his best bud would pull through with the opening. Noctis hadn’t even skipped a beat before asking Prompto if he wanted to snap a few shots before the wedding, and maybe at, and of course he said yes and tried contain his excitement.

There was just something about capturing a singular moment in people’s lives that they would look back on from that point. It was like stopping time.

He couldn’t remember whose idea this was, although in that moment it would do him little good. He raggedly dodged the incoming blast that would have otherwise left him stone, as his comrades did the same.

“Prompto!”

He could hear Noctis bark from across the room, before warping away as one of the two Psychomancers they were facing reached toward him with their bony hands. The blond cursed faintly under his breath, bouncing his way back closer to the action and pretending that he wasn’t trying to adjust his camera settings when he was supposed to be loading a gun. Their last battle against several flan type creatures left him and his gear more than a little sticky, and he had been trying to clean out the buttons since. Quickly, if not reluctantly, Prompto set his camera down and summoned his gun. In one movement, he cocked it with the correct round.

“Let me brighten your day!” he shouted his usual warning call for a flare, firing in a high arc that illuminated the room. The deamons recoiled, if only momentarily.

“Thanks!” Noctis called out, taking the distraction to run over to heal Ignis after a particularly heavy blow that left him limping toward the wall. After a glance, the blond ran back for his camera. As soon as the camera was within reach, a gust of wind hit him and knocked him forward, accompanied by the violent thud of Gladio’s shield beside him, and Prompto realized the taller man had blocked him from a massive sideswipe of a dashing Pyschomancer.

“Prompto, WAKE UP,” The shield shouted to the gunner, who responded with nothing more than a feeble grunt in reply as he regained balance. The camera had clattered into the middle of the room, just to be kicked further across the room by a pole vaulting Ignis. Just as the light from his Star Shell faded, he could tell the lens cap had popped off.

This was tiring and Prompto was beginning to hate it.

Of course, he was never the biggest fan of dungeons, but this one really took the cake. After being given some weird old keys by a pushy old lady in rocking chair back at Meldacio HQ, they had been crawling their way through some of the toughest dungeons the gunner had ever experienced. They had been mucking around in a good amount of caves around all of Lucis before having to return to Steyliff Grove. After kicking around The Vesperpool and finishing up some hunts for the duration of the a day, they waited in the plentiful ancient temple knee deep swamp water until dusk.  
Prompto had always been in awe of the beauty and terror of its tall empty main hall, pool of water flowing overhead as naturally as anything. If they had more time, he would have asked Noctis to stop for some photos. The way the moon and sunlight cascaded through the water and reflected shards of light around the room was unlike anything else he had witnessed on their travels so far, and he had just started to get used to the Astrals. When they resurfaced, he would definitely ask.  
After opening up the heavy vault-like door, covered in runes not unlike those at camp, they descended into what wasn’t a cave like the others had been, but a massive hall with high ceilings and the occasional deamon. At first it was going pretty well, he was event having fun, despite the creepy feeling that grew up slowly every single of his vertebrae every time they dealt with deamons or MTs. 

They even set up camp within the dungeons walls in what seemed like record time for once. Gladio pitched the tent with what was almost battle-ready glee. Ignis cooked a delicious meal, and they told a few jokes around the fire and it was all almost enough to forget that they had embarked into the depths of a terrifying death maze. They set off again the next morning (or so they thought, it was hard to tell) in bright spirits. They fought several more rooms of foes, and just narrowly escaped a grim fate when both Ignis and Noctis were brought to their knees at once by a group of Ronins and he and Gladio had to pick up the slack. Not that it slowed them down. They reached the second campsite all too soon, and had no worries hunkering down on the eerily cold stone floor yet again. The next morning, like before, they set out as they had previously. Upon reaching the next room, they stopped short. Noctis recoiled, “Ugh, that’s gross.” It smelled like a really nice creme brulee gone sour, and the look of intense distaste on the chamberlin’s face upon his descent of the stairs was not lost on Prompto. Gladio tried to wave it off while trying to stick his head into the room. Some sort of possessed pudding slimed about, making the floor both slick and sticky. It seemed to be their “just desserts”, as Ignis had put it, to which Noctis scoffed before warping headlong into the room.

When the prince’s warp landed, the deamon’s form melted, and Noctis found himself covered in the splattering of its retreating form. “Ugh!”, and Ignis was by his side, summoning a dagger in one hand while holding out a towel for the younger man, who swiftly took it and warped away to wipe off. With a shout, Gladio distracted the lot of them as he smashed his shield into another. The fight wasn’t tough, in an of itself, but more tedious as the deamons seemed impenetrable to brute force. While Gladio was distracting them, Ignis and Noctis pulled spells and tried not to get slimed. Just as they were down to two left, one got Ignis right in the face, coating his pristine frames in gunk. Prompto let out a sharp laugh, catching Noctis attention. “Nice look, Specks,” the prince called before warping over to back up Gladio’s offensive. Ignis, dignified as ever, went to remove his glasses. “No wait, I have to catch this!” Prompto raised his camera up to his face when- you guessed it, the same monster resurfaced and bashed the blonde upside the head, gushing coating half of his camera and head in a thick layer of goo, before sinking down into the floor once more.  
“NO!” Prompto crumpled to his knees, frantically wiping it down, while a resigned Ignis sighed and proceeded to clean his glasses.

That had been six rooms ago. All of them full of those creepy creme brulees. The four of them had been on the verge of death multiple times in a row now despite it all, and Noctis had all but quit casting spells, reverting to using a sleek set of daggers Prompto didn’t quite remember him getting and running around in circles to dodge while Ignis kept throwing ice around the room. They were efficient, but without the same zest they had had coming in. The blond was getting tired of slipping and getting frosty gunk in his camera and gun, and his hair, but it wasn’t as if his teammates fared much better.  
Which lead us to the Psychomancers in the room now.

“Prompto, WAKE UP.”

“Sorry!” He feebly called, in hot pursuit of his camera, spotting it some ways away from the action by the opposite wall.

So far, Psychomancers had to be the thing Prompto liked least in this hell hole. He had already seen one take down the prince momentarily, causing Ignis, Gladio, and himself to collectively panic before they could catch a glimpse of the Phoenix Down Noctis had in hand. While the battle raged on around him, Prompto dove across the room, lens cap be damned, rolling around the camera, cradling it in arm just as another beam shot across the room in an attempt to immobilize him. It caught Ignis, and he moved to fall from the force of the blast, but was caught by the spell, leaving him in an awkward backward lean. The gunner could hear Noctis sigh loudly, or breathing hard, it was getting harder to tell.

Gladio let out a guttural roar and sideswiped the two Pyschomancers hard enough to knock them both over. Without stopping, he went to town on the two squirming messes of wrong. Prompto gave his camera a once over, inspecting the lens. It was not cracked, which was as about as much as he could hope for. Summoning his pistol, he fired a round of shots at the pair of deamons, trying to will every bullet with hate so this could be over faster. “Prompto, get Iggy!” Noctis called in his direction, before exploding out in a burst of blue light that signaled his summoning the Royal Arms.  
Prompto doubletaked. He was missing all of the good shots! He raised his camera up, finding it still on, and trying to snap a few frames. He jogged over to the stone form of Ignis, making sure to photograph his stoney visage at least once or twice while the glowing prince zipped along behind him, weapons in hand. At last, he pulled out a Golden Needle and poked the still hand of the advisor, instantaneously bringing the color back to his features. Ignis seemed shaken, glancing around and finding the gunner. “Thank you” with a nod, he turned back to the fight with an adjustment of his glasses, as the Shield and prince fell prey to a mist of what looked an awful lot like poison.

The fight wouldn’t take much longer from that point. Fortunately, both the four of them and Prompto’s camera seemed to be in once piece, having found the lens cap in the remains of a charred deamon. They each respectively healed up before moving on to the next room.  
“Prompto, angle that bounce to the left,” The photographer commented from behind the lens, while the couple before them remained in an affectionate embrace as the waves of Insomnia’s beach gently crashed by their feet. The blond sheepishly nodded, shifting the large white reflective circle in his arms to the left in an attempt to catch the light. It caught the young couple’s eyes looking intently into the other’s, and Prompto could feel his heart flutter. They looked so dedicated.

A lot of photographers looked down on wedding photography; it was too much effort, it didn’t go anywhere, extended family was ever happy with the outcome. And definitely, some folks seemed to be doing it for the wrong reasons, but every so often a couple would come along and you could just really tell they were supposed to be together. While Prompto was sure that he himself was a long ways off from anything like marriage, it always brought a smile to his face when assisting a wedding photoshoot felt like he was actually doing something good for someone else. Even if they didn’t remember him, he helped create something that would last and be looked back on for years and years, better or worse.

The memory came back to the gunner suddenly at camp after the incident with the Pyschomancers. Ignis was cleaning up after a lasagna that always made Prompto feel like he could fart his way through the rest of the dungeon, but in a good way. Gladio was topless and doing squats off to the side facing the wall, weirdo, and Noctis was on his phone to his right. He was sitting in his usual spot, rigorously still trying to get the remaining goo flakes out of the buttons and lens of his camera. Inspecting the body once more, he turned it on to review the day’s photos. There were a few pretty decent ones he was going to show the gang, but also a few that progressively irked him. The photos he had tried to snap of stone Iggy and flying Noctis before were blurry, but not blurry in the way that they were out of focus, but blurry in the way that they were doubled, because the shutter speed had been too slow because the light Noctis and their flashlights put out was not enough to make it through his lens. In the next ones, his F-stop was too high. Perfectly in focus. Too dark.

The gunner fell into a frown, skipping through the rest of them to now. Somehow either he forgot the change his settings before that fight or they got screwed up when he dropped the camera, but they were all crap. “Ugh, can we go now? Haven’t we killed enough deamons to make that old lady happy?” He couldn’t help but whine, sinking into the chair.

“How is anyone going to believe we were here when your photos are so bad?” Prompto jumped slightly, too wound up in his photos to notice that the prince had leaned over to peek at his viewscreen. “Dude!” Betrayed, he shielded the camera and turned away with what was basically a pout.  
Ignis came to sit with them, mug of decaf coffee in hand. “‘Great evil’ would seem to be more than a few magic flan and some possessed corpses, after all.” Gladio remained off to the side, now doing one armed pushups, unaffected.

But he was supposed to be better than this now, better than when they had started out and his wrong camera settings were still cute instead of inexcusable. His photos ended up in that magazine that Vyv guy ran. He was supposed to be able to shoot photos worthy enough of giving to Lady Lunafreya, so that she and Noctis could look back on this forever. His thoughts ended up returning to the happy couple on the beach, and his heart fell. He wanted to believe they made it out of Insomnia before the fall, but in practicality they most likely didn’t. All of the people whose memories he helped make… A part of him vowed that when they finally made it back to Insomnia, he would search out the photos, somehow. He wouldn’t let them be forgotten. An idea struck him, and he sharply turned back to Noctis.

“Well, I was here. I don’t know what you were doing.” Holding up the camera for a selfie, he stuck out his tongue at his best friend and snapped a photo. This time he had made sure the settings were right. He took several more, each time making a more and more dramatic face. In spite of the barb, Noctis laughed and tossed his phone at the photographer. Gladio finally returned to the circle, quirking a brow and glancing over to Ignis as he sipped his coffee and watched the other two bemusedly.

It wasn’t the worst night, given the day they had, but it was nothing compared to what was in store for them from that point.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Future chapters will later allude to alternating ships between them all, because getting stuck places can flare up tempers.
> 
> If you might be interested in this particular fic, definitely leave kudos or subscribe and I'll update when I can!


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